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Monday, August 19, 2013

When Bargaining Is Easy

IR theory has never really helped me that much when buying a car. Sure, I learned about bargaining and incomplete information, but I rarely have practice. Meanwhile, the car people do this everyday.

So, today, we bought a used car so that I can be stuck with just one set of car payments (our other car). The lack of a need for financing made the bargaining easier but not easy. They claimed to have already marked down the car enough. I got a decent price, I think.

But then the bargaining got easier and yet less pleasant. At the end of these processes, you always have to deal with another person for the contract, and they like to bargain more. But this is where it is easy:

Extended Warranty? NO.
Car service package? NO!! Hey, but cars are complex these days and service elsewhere might void the warranty. HELL NO!.
Emergency service? NO, got CAA (Canadian version of AAA).
How about rustproofing. NO! Come on, cars rust without rustproofing. NO.

By the time you get to this guy, after all the test driving and bargaining, you, or at least me, well, I was pretty tired and cranky. So, it was easy to say no even before the guy would finish his song and dance. Then he played a new card: this car is for your wife, so let her speak and decide without your interference. Oh, really. So, Mrs. Spew go to say HELL NO!NO,NO & NO.

So, long afternoon ended with success but cranky folks. We will only know if we made a good deal if the car manages to hold together for another seven years or so. Oy.

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Stephen M. Saideman

Intro

Greetings! I am a political scientist, specializing in International Relations, my research and teaching focus on ethnic conflict and civil-military relations. I watch way too much TV, and I like movies as well so I tend to write about both and find IR stuff in pop culture. I rant alot about American politics and sometimes about Canadian politics. I like to take ideas I once learned a long time ago and apply them to whatever strikes my fancy.